Abstract

Over the last decade, the importance of detecting sulphur in petroleum-related products has increased dramatically. This is likely related to the necessity of complying with increasingly stringent government regulations, protecting expensive catalysts, and ensuring product quality. Reasons for detection and control of sulphur in different process streams have existed for the last fifteen years, but detection limits have been reduced dramatically in recent times. For example, in order to protect expensive, sulphur-intolerant catalysts, the production feed for polypropylene or polyethylene must be monitored for sulphur content. The sulphur analyzer used in this application must now have the ability to detect sulphur from 1 parts per billion to 10 parts per million.